On the second day of VISION Messe Stuttgart, the four representatives of the organisations vying for the VISION Award 2021 took their place on the stage. Imaging and Machine Vision Europe’s Publishing Director, Warren Clark appeared via video link above the stage to oversee the proceedings.
The Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT), HD Vision Systems, Carl Zeiss Automated Inspection and Prophesee were shortlisted for the award from a total of 44 submissions. Each representative was given around five minutes to present their organisation and the products they produce, accompanied by slideshows.
After they had completed their presentations, Martin Wäny of the judging panel took to the stage to discuss the history of the VISION Award, pivoting into a history of event-based vision before finally naming Prophesee as the winner. Wäny called event-based vision a “new paradigm” in imaging technology, whilst the remaining judges cited Prophesee for making great strides with its event-based sensing, which advances machine vision capabilities over traditional frame-based approaches.
“We thank VISION and IMVE for this recognition amongst a very impressive field of candidates who are all doing incredible work. We feel this represents an acknowledgement that event-based vision has reached a new juncture of commercial acceptance and success”, said Luca Verre, co-founder and CEO of Prophesee. “While we are extremely proud of the truly disruptive technical innovation we have been able to deliver with our Metavision platform, we are also as pleased to see the growing ecosystem around event-based vision.
“We are seeing tremendous support and engagement from software developers, commercial product designers in a wide range of application areas, researchers, entrepreneurs, system integration partners, camera makers and global leaders in machine vision like Sony, Framos, Imago, Century ARKS, Macnica, and our newest partner Lucid Vision Labs”.
At the core of Prophesee solution is its Metavision sensors. Inspired by the human retina, each pixel of the Metavision sensor embeds its own intelligence and activates itself independently, triggering events. They asynchronously detect luminance changes for each pixel and output the changed data.
This is combined with information on pixel position (xy coordinates) and time, thereby enabling high-speed, low latency data output. Its sensors capture up to 1,000 times fewer data than a conventional sensor whilst achieving a higher equivalent temporal resolution of 10,000 fps.
Prophesee take the €3,000 award and add it to an already successful year which has seen them gather a host of new investors and pick up accolades that include getting named a “Soonicorn” as well as one of the top 60 best performing French tech companies. Peruse the latest edition of Automate Pro Europe magazine to read a pre-VISION interview with Prophesee CEO and Co-founder, Luca Verre.
You can find more information about the VISION Award, the winner Prophesee, the AIT, HD Vision Systems and Zeiss on their respective websites.
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